Roee Rosen, Stills from Little Iron, Nov 8, 2013

Stills from Animation Chants for Commodities – Little Iron. In their attempt to bring the iron to life, the couple (Igor Krutogolov and Lucy Dubinchik) present their little iron with a variety of images. Here, the image is a defaced photo of D. Abidova, member of the people’s Commissars of Uzbekistan. The book was designed by Rodchenko in 1934. Three years later, as Stalin’s purges were at their peak, Rodchenko felt compelled to deface the visages of doomed former Uzbek leaders in his own book. The photos are part of the archive of David King, and appear in his book The Commissar Vanishes, The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia (New York, Metropolitan Books, 1997). You can watch the chant at roeerosen.com.